On the back of the recent legal issues in the creative space, Ghanaian rapper M.anifest has suggested that the industry gets more professionals to handle such matters.
In a Facebook post, M.anifest wrote: “I’ve been seeing a lot of legal issues in the African music/arts ecosystem popping up lately. We could do with more entertainment lawyers and other diligent music professionals. Not everyday rapping, singing and dancing.”
M.anifest’s submission is premised on recent claims by Ghanaian musician Kirani Ayat that the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) had used shots from his ‘Guda’ video for a tourism promo advert, without his permission.
The issue which generated a lot of conversation on social media suddenly died down when the GTA called the artiste Kirani Ayat and the company that supposedly produced the advert, Samsal, for a meeting.
This comes two years after Ghanaian Afrobeat artiste, Worlasi also complained that the National Democratic Congress had used his song for their documentary without his consent.
About a week ago, Worlasi explained that he still had not been paid by the NDC for the infringement.
In a related development, Goldenvoice, organiser of Coachella, has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the organizers of Afrochella, a Ghanaian music festival specializing in Afrobeats music.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday at a California district court and obtained by Rolling Stone, comes three years after AEG (which owns Goldenvoice) issued a warning to the Afrochella festival about infringing on the festival’s trademark.
This has raised concerns about how seriously people in the creative space take copyright issues and what could be done to educate creative people on intellectual property laws.
–
By: Kwame Dadzie | Ghana Weekend
